Dogme 95 was an avant-garde filmmaking movement started in 1995 by the Danish directors Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg, who created the "Dogme 95 Manifesto" and the "Vow of Chastity". These were rules to create filmmaking based on the traditional values of story, acting, and theme, and excluding the use of elaborate special effects or technology.^[1] They were later joined by fellow Danish directors Kristian Levring and Søren Kragh-Jacobsen, forming the Dogme 95 Collective or the Dogme Brethren. Dogme is the Danish word for dogma.

The genre gained international appeal partly because of its accessibility. It sparked an interest in unknown filmmakers by suggesting that one can make a recognised film of a quality to gain recognition, without being dependent on commissions or huge Hollywood budgets. The directors used European government subsidies and television station funding instead.

History[link]

The friends Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg wrote and co-signed the manifesto and its companion "vows". Vinterberg said that they wrote the pieces in 45 minutes.^[2] The manifesto initially mimics the wording of François Truffaut's 1954 essay "Une certaine tendance du cinéma français" in Cahiers du cinéma.

They announced the Dogme movement on March 13, 1995 in Paris, at Le cinéma vers son deuxième siècle conference. The cinema world had gathered to celebrate the first century of motion pictures and contemplate the uncertain future of commercial cinema. Called upon to speak about the future of film, Lars von Trier showered a bemused audience with red pamphlets announcing "Dogme 95".

In response to criticism, Von Trier and Vinterberg have both stated that they just wanted to establish a new extreme: "In a business of extremely high budgets, we figured we should balance the dynamic as much as possible."^{[citation needed]}

The first of the Dogme films (Dogme #1) was Vinterberg's 1998 film Festen (The Celebration). It was critically acclaimed and won the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival that year. Lars von Trier's Dogme film, Idioterne (The Idiots), also premiered at Cannes that year but was less successful. Since the two films were released, other directors have made films based on Dogme principles. French-American actor and director Jean-Marc Barr was the first non-Dane to direct a Dogme film: Lovers (1999) (Dogme #5). The American Harmony Korine's movie Julien Donkey-Boy (Dogme #6) also was considered a Dogme film.

Het Zuiden (South) (2004), directed by Martin Koolhoven, included thanks to "Dogme 95". Koolhoven originally planned to shoot it as a Dogme film, and it was co-produced by von Trier's Zentropa. The director decided he did not want to be so severely constrained as by Dogme principles.

Goals and rules[link]

The goal of the Dogme collective is to purify filmmaking by refusing expensive and spectacular special effects, post-production modifications and other technical gimmicks. The filmmakers concentrate on the story and the actors' performances. They believe this approach may better engage the audience, as they are not alienated or distracted by overproduction. To this end, Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg produced ten rules to which any Dogme film must conform. These rules, referred to as the "Vow of Chastity," are as follows:^[1]

1. Filming must be done on location. Props and sets must not be brought in. If a particular prop is necessary for the story, a location must be chosen where this prop is to be found.
2. The sound must never be produced apart from the images or vice versa. Music must not be used unless it occurs within the scene being filmed, i.e., diegetic.
3. The camera must be a hand-held camera. Any movement or immobility attainable in the hand is permitted. The film must not take place where the camera is standing; filming must take place where the action takes place.
4. The film must be in colour. Special lighting is not acceptable (if there is too little light for exposure the scene must be cut or a single lamp be attached to the camera).
5. Optical work and filters are forbidden.
6. The film must not contain superficial action (murders, weapons, etc. must not occur.)
7. Temporal and geographical alienation are forbidden (that is to say that the film takes place here and now).
8. Genre movies are not acceptable.
9. The film format must be Academy 35 mm.
10. The director must not be credited.

Uses and abuses[link]

The above rules have been both circumvented and broken from the first Dogme film to be produced. For instance, Vinterberg "confessed" to having covered a window during the shooting of one scene in The Celebration (Festen). With this, he both brought a prop onto the set and used "special lighting." Von Trier used background music (Le Cygne by Camille Saint-Saëns) in the film The Idiots (Idioterne).

Since 2002 and the 31st film, a filmmaker no longer needs to have his work verified by the original board to identify it as a Dogme 95 work. The founding "brothers" have begun working on new experimental projects and have been skeptical about the later common interpretation of the Manifesto as a brand or a genre. The movement broke up in 2005.^[3] Today, filmmakers submit a form online and check a box which states they "truly believe that the film ... has obeyed all Dogme95 rules as stated in the VOW OF CHASTITY."^[4]

Criticism[link]

Remodernist filmmaker Jesse Richards criticizes the movement in his Remodernist Film Manifesto, stating in relation to Point 10, "Remodernist film is not Dogme ’95. We do not have a pretentious checklist that must be followed precisely. This manifesto should be viewed only as a collection of ideas and hints whose author may be mocked and insulted at will."^[5] American film critic Armond White also criticized the movement, stating that it was "the manifesto that brought filmmaking closer to amateur porn". He believed the movement would be rejected as insignificant by film historians.^[6]

Notable Dogme films[link]

Complete list is available from the Dogme95 web site (via Internet Archive).

Notable figures[link]

See also[link]

	Book: Dogme 95
Wikipedia books are collections of articles that can be downloaded or ordered in print.

• Category:Dogme 95 films
• Minimalism
• Realism (arts)
• Pluginmanifesto
• New Puritans
• Stuckism
• New Sincerity
• Remodernism
• Remodernist film
• Post-postmodernism

Notes and references[link]

External links[link]

• "Interview: Mogens Rukov", Zakka
• Official Nimbus Film Website
• "Lars From 1-10", 10-minute film with reflections by von Trier on Dogme 95, The Perverts Guide
• Dogme 95 by John Roberts, New Left Review I/238, November-December 1999

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Thomas Vinterberg
Thomas Vinterberg in February 2010
Born	(1969-05-19) 19 May 1969 (age 43) Copenhagen, Denmark
Occupation	Film director, producer, screenwriter and actor
Spouse	Maria Walbom (1990–2007)

Thomas Vinterberg (born 19 May 1969) is a Danish film director who, along with Lars von Trier, co-founded the Dogme 95 movement in filmmaking, which established rules for simplifying movie production.

In 1993 he graduated from the National Film School of Denmark with Last Round (Sidste Omgang), which won the jury and producers' awards at the Munich International Festival of Film Schools, and First Prize at Tel Aviv. That year Vinterberg made his first TV drama for DR TV and his short fiction film The Boy Who Walked Backwards, produced by Birgitte Hald at Nimbus Film.

This film has won awards and accolades all over the world, including Nordic Panorama in Iceland, the International Short Film Festival in Clermont-Ferrand, and the Toronto Film Festival.

His first feature film was The Biggest Heroes (De Største Helte), a road movie that received acclaim in his native Denmark.

In 1995, Vinterberg formed the Dogme 95 movement with Lars von Trier, Kristian Levring, and Søren Kragh-Jacobsen.

Following that dogma in 1998, he conceived, wrote and directed (and also had a small acting role in) the first of the Dogme movies, The Celebration (Festen). As per the rules of the Dogme manifesto, he did not take a directorial credit and IMDb has the film listed with no director. However, he and the film won numerous nominations and awards, including the Jury Prize at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival.^[1]

In 2003, he directed the apocalyptic science fiction love story It's All About Love, a movie he wrote, directed and produced himself over a period of five years. This movie was entirely in English and featured, among others, Joaquin Phoenix, Claire Danes, and Sean Penn. The movie did not do well, as critics and audiences found it idiosyncratic and somewhat incomprehensible.

His next film, the English-language Dear Wendy (2005), scripted by Lars von Trier, also flopped, even in his native Denmark where it sold only 14,521 tickets [1]. Vinterberg then tried to retrace his roots with a smaller Danish-language production, En mand kommer hjem (2007), which also flopped, selling only 31,232 tickets [2].

On 1 August 2008 he directed the music video for "The Day That Never Comes", the first single off Metallica's album Death Magnetic.

His 2010 film Submarino was nominated for the Golden Bear at the 60th Berlin International Film Festival.^[2]

In 2012, his film The Hunt competed for the Palme d'Or at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival.^[3][4]

Filmography[link]

• Sneblind (1990) (short)
• Last Round / Sidste omgang (1993) (short)
• The Boy Who Walked Backwards / Drengen der gik baglæns (1994) (short)
• The Biggest Heroes / De største helte (1996)
• The Celebration / Festen (1998)
• The Third Lie (2000)
• It's All About Love (2003)
• Dear Wendy (2005)
• A Man Comes Home / En mand kommer hjem (2007)
• Submarino (2010)
• The Hunt (2012)

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Thomas Vinterberg

• Thomas Vinterberg at the Internet Movie Database
• CNN interview with Thomas Vinterberg

Harmony Korine
Korine at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival
Born	Harmony Korine (1973-01-04) January 4, 1973 (age 39) Bolinas, California, United States

Harmony Korine (born January 4, 1973)^[1] is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, and author.

He is best known for writing Kids, and for directing Gummo, Julien Donkey-Boy and Mister Lonely. His film Trash Humpers premiered at Toronto International Film Festival and won the main prize, the DOX Award, at CPH:DOX in November 2009. As of March 2012, Korine's project Spring Breakers was under production in Florida.

Early life[link]

Korine was born in Bolinas, California to Eve and Sol Korine and raised in Nashville, Tennessee. Sol produced documentaries for PBS in the 1970s about an "array of colourful Southern characters" and taught Korine how to use a Bolex camera.^[2] As a child, Korine watched movies with his father, who rented Buster Keaton films and took him to see Even Dwarfs Started Small in the theater. Korine reminisces, "I knew there was a poetry in cinema that I had never seen before that was so powerful."^[3][4] Korine spent his childhood in Nashville, attending Hillsboro High School before moving to New York City to live with his grandmother.^[1] Korine also spent some time living with his parents in a commune, which helped to inspire the commune setting of Mister Lonely.^[5] As a teenager, Korine frequented revival theaters, watching classic films by John Cassavetes, Werner Herzog, Jean-Luc Godard, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and Alan Clarke. In an interview with Bruce LaBruce, Korine briefly mentioned that he studied Business Administration in college. Other sources state that he studied Dramatic Writing at Tisch School of the Arts at New York University for one semester before dropping out to pursue a career as a professional skateboarder.

Film career[link]

[edit] Kids & Gummo (1995–1998)

Korine was skating with friends in Washington Square Park when he noticed photographer Larry Clark. Korine showed Clark a "35-page script he'd written about a kid whose father took him to a prostitute on his 13th birthday".^[6] Impressed, the photographer asked him to compose a script about skaters and to include in the plot a teenage AIDS experience.^[7] Korine told Clark, "I've been waiting all my life to write this story."^[8] Within three weeks, Korine wrote Kids, a film about 24 hours in the sex and drug filled lives of several Manhattan teenagers that has been touted as a realistic viewpoint of youth in New York City during the AIDS crisis. Kids garnered good reviews, but due to its NC-17 rating, few audiences actually saw the film upon its debut. However, it has since become a significant cult film. Among others, the film features Chloë Sevigny and Rosario Dawson in their first movie roles. The film, while controversial, jumpstarted Korine's career. This put him into contact with film producer Cary Woods who budgeted about $1 million to produce Gummo, Korine's personal vision.^[6]

In 1997, Korine wrote and directed Gummo, a film based on life in Xenia, Ohio, a town devastated by a tornado in the early 1970s. Forgoing conventional narrative, Gummo embodies sketches written by Korine, hence the nonlinear, fragmented events over the course of the film capitalizing on the obscure. Much of the cast was found during preproduction where it was filmed in Tennessee, and of all those who appeared in the film, only five were experienced actors. The film is notable for having unsettling, often bizarre scenes, as well as its dreamlike soundtrack, which strengthens the disconcerting atmosphere. It features "an eclectic soundtrack including death metal, Madonna and Roy Orbison".^[9]

It premiered at the 24th Telluride Film Festival on August 29, 1997. During the screening, numerous people got up and left during the initial cat drowning sequence. Three months later, Werner Herzog called Korine to give praise to the film overall, especially the bacon taped to the wall during the bathtub scene. He told the New York Times, "When I saw a piece of fried bacon fixed to the bathroom wall in Gummo, it knocked me off my chair. [Korine's] a very clear voice of a generation of filmmakers that is taking a new position. It's not going to dominate world cinema, but so what?"^[10]

Although a majority of mainstream critics derided it as an unintelligible mess, it won top prizes at that year's Venice Film Festival and earned Korine the respect of noted filmmakers such as Gus Van Sant, among others. Its stature has only grown in the ensuing years, gaining a cult classic status as a truly shocking and experimental film "unlike anything you've seen in a while – maybe ever" – and that "if you're the kind of person who claims to be frustrated by the predictability of commercial filmmaking, [it presents] a rare opportunity to put your money where your mouth is."^[11]

In 1998, Korine released The Diary of Anne Frank Pt II, a 40-minute three-screen collage featuring a boy burying his dog, kids in satanic dress vomiting on a Bible, and a man in black-face dancing and singing "My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean". It utilizes some of the same actors and themes as Gummo, and can be considered a companion piece. The film "further disgusted critics"^[7] and solidified his status as a notoriously shocking and experimental director.

[edit] Julien Donkey-Boy & Ken Park (1999–2003)

Julien Donkey-Boy, released in 1999, included a signed Dogme 95 manifesto. While it broke a number of the movement's basic tenets, Lars Von Trier lauded Korine's ability to interpret the rules creatively.

The story is told from the perspective of a young man suffering from untreated schizophrenia, played by Ewen Bremner, as he tries to understand his deteriorating world. Julien's abusive father is played by Werner Herzog. At one point, Korine was to play the son, but he backed down and was replaced by Bremner.

Like Gummo and Kids, it too has since become something of a cult classic, a go-to film for those seeking cinema that is, as Roger Ebert said in his three star review, "shocking for most moviegoers", unlike "the slick aboveground indie productions" that are now the norm.^[12]

In 2000 The Devil, The Sinner, and His Journey premiered, which featured Korine in blackface as O.J. Simpson and the actor Johnny Depp as Kato Kaelin.

In 2002, Larry Clark made the film Ken Park, based on a script Korine had written several years earlier. The film, another adult tale of youth gone awry, was not distributed in the United States. At the time of its release, Clark and Korine had long since parted ways and Korine had no involvement in its production.

In 2003 he made the television documentary film Above the Below about his friend and collaborator David Blaine and his 44-day stunt in a park over the bank of River Thames in London inside a suspended plexiglas box. A documentary commissioned by Sky Television and Channel 4, it also includes jokes, visual poetry, and music. In addition to the documentary, Korine has worked with Blaine on a number of Blaine's specials.

He first met his wife Rachel, a 17-year-old from Nashville, around this time.

[edit] Mister Lonely & Trash Humpers (2007–2009)

His third feature film, Mister Lonely, was co-written by his brother, Avi Korine and starred Diego Luna, Samantha Morton, Denis Lavant, Anita Pallenberg, David Blaine, Werner Herzog and Mal Whiteley. The movie was released in 2008 and debuted at Cannes.^[13] His largest film with a budget of $8.2 million,^[14] it received mixed reviews and earned $386,915 in its first 9 months.^[15]

The film is the story of "a young American man lost in Paris. He scratches out a living as a Michael Jackson look-alike, dancing in the streets, in public parks, at tourist spots and trade shows. Different from everyone else, he feels as if he's floating between two worlds. During a show at a geriatric home Michael Jackson meets Marilyn Monroe. Haunted by her angelic beauty he follows her to a commune in the Highlands, joining her husband Charlie Chaplin and her daughter Shirley Temple. The commune is a place where everyone is famous and "no-one gets old". Here, The Pope, The Queen of England, Madonna, James Dean and other impersonators build a stage in the hope that the world will visit and watch them perform. Everything is beautiful. Until the world shifts, and reality intrudes on their utopian dream."^[16]

Korine also appeared in the 2007 documentary film Beautiful Losers in which his life and career were one of the focuses of the film, along with other artists such as Mike Mills, Shepard Fairey, Margaret Kilgallen, Jo Jackson and Barry McGee. In the documentary, Korine discusses his motivation as an artist and filmmaker, as well as his inspiration for creating films he has never seen. Footage also appears from one of Korine's rare, early and untitled short films, that preceded his work on Kids.

In 2008 Harmony Korine was signed to MJZ for worldwide commercial representation.

On 6 September 2009 Korine's latest film, Trash Humpers^[17] premiered as part of the Visions section of the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival.^[18] Despite being a work of fiction, the film went on to win the top award at the prominent European documentary film festival CPH:DOX – Copenhagen International Documentary Festival – in November 2009.

In March 2011, Korine released a short film entitled Umshini Wam, which is a popular Zulu struggle song meaning "bring me my machine gun". The film starred Ninja and Yo-Landi of Die Antwoord. In September 2011, Korine released a short film entitled Snowballs, sponsored by the Proenza Schouler fashion label.

Current projects[link]

As of March 2012, Korine's latest project, Spring Breakers was under production in Florida. Starring Selena Gomez, James Franco, Ashley Benson, Vanessa Hudgens, the film is a comedy romance set to release in Spring 2013.^[19][20] In looking at early scenes being filmed and in speaking toward the plot, cast, and earlier works of the filmmaker, Indiewire wrote "this might be the weirdest movie the director has ever made simply by nature of being totally unlike his previous work."^[19] It was reported on the official Selena Gomez website,^[21] and by Gomez herself using Instagram,^[22] that principal filming wrapped up on March 30, 2012.

Unreleased projects[link]

[edit] Fight Harm

Korine originally intended to follow up Gummo with a short-lived project known as Fight Harm, filmed by illusionist David Blaine. It comprised footage of Korine engaging random people in actual street fights. In these he followed rules of always provoking the fight and continuing until threat of death. Korine, who often said he would die for the cinema, hoped to make a cross between a Buster Keaton vehicle and a snuff film, but after only six fights, he was hospitalized and forced to abandon the project.^[7]

[edit] Jokes

Jokes is an unfinished three-part film written by Harmony Korine. The three chapters – Easter, Herpes and Slippers – were to be each directed by different directors.^[23]

[edit] What Makes Pistachio Nuts?

Prior to Mister Lonely Korine had written a story about a pig named Pistachio. The film was to take place during a race war in Florida and have a boy who would saddle the pig, put adhesive on its feet, climb up walls and throw molotov-cocktails. "It was going to be my masterpiece," Korine comments. The script burnt in a fire and Korine spent $11,000 trying to recover it from his computer. He reportedly retrieved one sentence: "The speech is pointless; the finger is speechless.".^[24]

Other works[link]

Books[link]

Korine has also published a number of books. In 1995 a screenplay for Kids was published by Grove Press, followed by a collection of the screenplays for Gummo, Julien Donkey-Boy, and Jokes in Collected Screenplays, published by Faber and Faber in 2002. In 2008 the screenplay for Mister Lonely was released by Swiss publisher Nieves with photographs by Rachel Korine and Brent Stewart. The majority of these books differ substantially from the movies eventually produced.

In 1998 Korine published a book entitled A Crack Up at the Race Riots, an experimental novel, described as his attempt to write "the Great American Choose Your Own Adventure novel" in his appearance on Letterman. In November 2008, Drag City published a collection of his fanzines called The Collected Fanzines with skateboarder/writer Mark Gonzalez. 2009 sees Korine returning to the collaborative zine process alongside fellow avant-garde artist Noel Sinclair Boyt.^[25]

Art[link]

Korine released a number of photographic collections, usually in conjunction with gallery exhibits. In 1998 he published The Bad Son in conjunction with Taka Ishii gallery in Tokyo, documenting his various photo shoots with Macaulay Culkin. 2002 saw the release of Pass the Bitch Chicken, a collaboration with artist Christopher Wool, which consists of Korine's photographs heavily edited by Korine and Wool. In 2009 he published Pigxote in conjunction with the Vanderbilt University Fine Arts Gallery and released by Nieves. The university describes the exhibition, which ran through Feb. 26, 2009, as culling "together a number of photographs from Korine’s private files in order to reveal a side of the artist’s creative process that remains largely unexamined. Depicting an unnamed, mysterious young girl moving through a televised landscape of shifting contexts, Pigxote further illustrates Korine’s interest in replacing plot lines and expected narrative tropes with intuitively arranged “experiential moments.” They also provide a unique insight into the poetic mind of Nashville’s most compelling prodigal son."^[26] Most recently his works were presented in a 2003 exhibition at agnès b's Galerie du jour in Paris, with whom Korine has often been associated. In 2010 Korine collaborated with New York Visual Artist Bill Saylor on the book Ho Bags. The book consists of drawing and paintings in which Korine and Saylor drew over each others works. In 2011 Korine collaborated with NYC skate brand Supreme, releasing two skateboard decks featuring original artworks.

Music[link]

Korine has directed a number of music videos for artists such as Sonic Youth, Cat Power and Will Oldham (e.g. No More Workhorse Blues). In addition, he sang on Oldham's "Ease Down The Road", and co-authored the lyrics of Björk's musical composition "Harm of Will" from her album Vespertine (2001). In 1999 Korine and Brian Degraw of Gang Gang Dance released a music CD SSAB Songs. "I don't really know what it sounds like", Korine explained to i-D magazine. "I only listened to it once. I think it's the kind of album I'd only listen to once". The tracks labeled "Harmony" on Songs in A&E are named after Korine by Jason Pierce of Spiritualized, who also made the soundtrack to Mister Lonely. "Harmony Korine" is the lead track on the solo album Insurgentes by Porcupine Tree lead singer Steven Wilson.

Themes and influence[link]

Much of Korine's work is based around the dark humor and absurdism involved in dysfunctional childhoods, mental disorders, and poverty.^[27] This is often incorporated into surrealist, non-linear forms and presented experimentally (see the mix of Polaroids, Super 8 and 35mm film that makes up Gummo). Blackface, tap-dance, and minstrelsy are common elements to Korine's work.^[28] "I'm a huge fan of vaudeville – like Fanny Brice, Eddie Cantor, and Al Jolson... There's this random tragedy associated with the decline of the vaudeville entertainer, which is a theme in Gummo that I completely stole from vaudeville."^[29] Like vaudeville, the narrative of Korine's work is abstract and works by association. Korine compares this concept to a book of private photos. On their own each photo would be seemingly random and devoid of context, but because they are compiled in one volume and presented in succession, a narrative exists. "That's how Gummo was written."^[29] Improvisation is also an important filmmaking technique for Korine, as a way to maintain his movies as "living thing[s]."^[5] Korine does not try to write messages or meanings into his scripts, as he finds it belittling to the audience. With his films, Korine strives to retain a "margin of the undefined."^[12]

Though mainstream success has eluded Korine, he has gained a significant cult following, inspiring director Fabrizio Federico's Pink8 Manifesto. Despite the scorn of a majority of mainstream reviewers, he has won festival prizes at Venice and Rotterdam, among others, and established directors such as Bernardo Bertolucci and Gus Van Sant are outspoken proponents of Korine's work. On Gummo Van Sant said it "changed his life"^[30] and Bertolucci said Korine has "created a revolution in the language of cinema."^[31] A significant number of scholarly essays have been written on the importance of his oeuvre to film and art in general.^[32]

The Toronto International Film Festival writes, "Such is the dilemma with Korine and his remarkable career; for all the fireworks, there is an impressive coherence in the subject matter of his work. His four feature films all seek to shed light on a certain class of people: unique and bizarre individuals usually lumped under the heading of 'subculture.' ... His portraits come from many angles – the baroque stillness of Gummo contrasts radically with the rough-hewn melodrama of Julien Donkey-Boy. His last film, Mister Lonely, had an epic quality and interest in celebrity that Trash Humpers disdains, preferring instead a low-end surveillance-video look with frequent in-camera lighting distortions and a cinéma-vérité authenticity.^[33]

Recurrent in his work (with the exception perhaps of Mister Lonely) is a portrait of what Korine calls the "American Landscape."^[34] He recently stated "to me, the most beautiful thing in the world is an abandoned parking lot and a soiled sofa on the edge… with a street lamp off to the side. America seems like a series of abandoned parking lots, streetlights and abandoned sofas."^[35] Such a statement gives insight into Korine's complex aesthetic.

Korine has frequently been labeled as an enfant terrible and been accused of exploitation and self-indulgance, to which he has responded, "How can an artist be expected not to be self-indulgent? That's the whole thing that's wrong with filmmaking today... To me, art is one man's voice, one idea, one point-of-view, coming from one person."^[36] Korine feels there is no need to justify or explain the images he puts to the screen, in that they are simply the result of "a cinema of passion and obsession."^[29] "I mostly just make things to entertain myself and at the same time hope that there’s some type of audience that likes what I’m doing."^[37] Korine adds, "Film is like a dead art because of people not taking chances."^[36] To Korine, the only films that matter are the auteurist works.^[38]

In his films, Korine attempts to convey a poetic, or "estatic truth" as filmmaker and friend, Werner Herzog termed in his 1999 Minnesota declaration. Korine is also proponent of what he calls a "mistake-ist" artform. During Julien Donkey-Boy Korine went so far as to write a "Mistakist declaration", which has been published in his Collected Screenplays.

On the current state of cinema, Korine comments, "When I look at the history of film – the early commercial narrative movies directed by D.W. Griffith, say – and then look at where films are now, I see so little progression in the way they are made and presented, and I'm bored with that. Film can be so much more."^[4]

On looking for meaning in his films Korine states, "I think people will lose the film as soon as they start trying to figure out my logic or what I'm doing or while they're watching it start to dissect metaphors... I'm not really so interested in it working on a purely cerebral level. I'm much more concerned with it on an emotional level and that you leave feeling a certain way."^[38] Korine states that if there is at least one image that sticks with you after viewing the film, then it is a success.^[30]

Producer Cary Woods writes, "I think the best hope for cinema is allowing people who are artists to make a movie that isn't wholly ruled by screenplay structure... [Korine's] a storyteller, and he's gone out of his way to put images that are moving on the screen, and meaningful in some way."^[30]

As critic Roger Ebert said in his review of Julien Donkey-Boy, "Korine, who at 25 is one of the most untamed new directors, belongs on the list with Godard, Cassavetes, Herzog, Warhol, Tarkovsky, Brakhage and others who smash conventional movies and reassemble the pieces... Harmony Korine is the real thing, an innovative and gifted filmmaker whose work forces us to see on his terms."^[12]

In 1997, Korine's favorite writers were listed as James Thurber, S. J. Perelman, and Flannery O'Connor.^[30] Korine has noted British filmmaker Alan Clarke as an influence. (See Elephant)^[39]

In a 1999 Dazed and Confused magazine article Korine listed his top ten films as: Pixote by Hector Babenco, Badlands and Days of Heaven by Terrence Malick, Fat City by John Huston, Stroszek by Werner Herzog, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie and A Woman Under the Influence by John Cassavetes, McCabe and Mrs. Miller by Robert Altman, Out of the Blue by Dennis Hopper and Hail Mary by Jean-Luc Godard.

Filmography[link]

As writer/director:

• Gummo (1997)
• The Devil, The Sinner, and His Journey (1998, Short)
• The Diary of Anne Frank Pt II (1998, Exhibition)
• Julien Donkey-Boy (1999, Uncredited)
• Jokes (2000, Unfinished)
• Mister Lonely (2007)
• Trash Humpers (2009)
• Mac and Plak (2010, Short)
• Act Da Fool (2010, Short)
• Umshini Wam (2010, Short)
• Blood of Havana (2011, Short)
• Rebel (2011, Exhibition, Segment "Caput")
• Snowballs (2011, Short)
• The Fourth Dimension (2012, Segment "Lotus Community Workshop")
• Spring Breakers (2013)

As director only:

• Above the Below (2003)

As writer only:

• Kids (1995)
• Ken Park (2002)

As producer:

• The Aluminium Fowl (2006)
• Blackberry Winter (2006)
• Mister Lonely (2007)
• The Dirty Ones (2009)

As actor:

• Kids (1995) – Fidget
• Good Will Hunting (1997) – Jerve
• Gummo (1997) – Boy on Couch
• Last Days (2005) – Guy in Club
• Trash Humpers (2009) – Hervé

As himself:

• The Name of This Film Is Dogme95 (2000)
• Beautiful Losers (2008)
• Until The Light Takes Us (2008)
• Sleepless Night Stories (2011)
• The Advocate For Fagdom (2011)
• Fight Harm (unfinished)

References[link]

External links[link]

• Harmony Korine Fansite, Bio, Photos, Interviews & Articles
• Harmony Korine at the Internet Movie Database
• Senses of Cinema Essay
• Korine on Letterman 95', Korine on Letterman 97', Korine on Letterman 98'
• Korine Retrospective & Interview
• Amateur french short movie based on extracts from Harmony Korine's book "A Crackup at the race riots"

Lars von Trier
Lars von Trier at Cannes in 2000
Born	Lars Trier (1956-04-30) 30 April 1956 (age 56) Kongens Lyngby, Denmark
Occupation	Film director and screenwriter
Influenced by	Andrei Tarkovsky, Carl Theodor Dreyer, Ingmar Bergman, Stanley Kubrick, Douglas Sirk, David Lynch, Jørgen Leth, Erich von Stroheim, Josef von Sternberg, Bertolt Brecht
Spouse	Cæcilia Holbek (m. 1987–1995)[1] Bente Frøge (m. 1997–present)

Lars von Trier (Danish pronunciation: [ˈlɑːs fʌn ˈtʁiːˀɐ]; born Lars Trier; 30 April 1956)^[2] is a Danish film director and screenwriter. He is closely associated with the Dogme 95 collective – an avant-garde filmmaking movement – although his own films have taken a variety of approaches. His work has frequently divided the critics.^[3]

Von Trier began making films at the age of eleven. Raised by a communist mother and a socialist father in an austere environment, he converted at the age of 30 to the Catholic Church. Von Trier suffers periodically from depression, as well as various fears and phobias, including an intense fear of flying. As he himself said in an interview, "Basically, I'm afraid of everything in life, except filmmaking".^[4]. His first publicly released film was an experimental short called The Orchid Gardener (1977) and his first feature film came seven years later with The Element of Crime (1984). Among many other prizes, awards and nominations, he is the recipient of the Palme d'Or, the Grand Prix, and the Prix du Jury at the Cannes Film Festival.

Early life and career[link]

Lars Trier was born in Kongens Lyngby, north of Copenhagen, the son of Inger Trier (née Høst, 1915—1989). He had believed that his biological father was Ulf Trier (1907—1978), until his mother revealed to him on her deathbed that he had been conceived as a result of an affair she had with her employer, Fritz Michael Hartmann. His mother considered herself a communist, while his father was social democrat, and both were committed nudists,^[5] and the young Lars went on several childhood holidays to nudist camps. They regarded the disciplining of children as reactionary. Trier has noted that he was brought up in an atheist family, and that although Ulf Trier was Jewish, he was not religious. He did not discover the identity of his biological father until 1989. His parents did not allow much room in their household for "feelings, religion, or enjoyment", and also refused to make any rules for their children,^[6] with complex results for von Trier's personality and development.^[7] He began making his own films at the age of 11 after receiving a Super-8 camera as a gift and continued to be involved in independent moviemaking throughout his high school years.^[3]

In 1979, he was enrolled in the National Film School of Denmark.^[8] His peers at the film school nicknamed him "von Trier". The name is sort of an inside-joke with the von (German "of" or "from" used as a nobiliary particle), suggesting nobility and a certain arrogance, while Lars is a very common and Trier not an unusual name in Denmark.^[9] He reportedly kept the "von" name in homage to Erich von Stroheim and Josef von Sternberg, both of whom also added it later in life.^[10] During his time as a student at the school he made the films Nocturne (1980) and The Last Detail (Den sidste detalje, 1981),^[11] both of which won Best Film awards at the Munich International Festival of Film Schools,^[12] and he graduated with Images of a Relief (Befrielsesbilleder, 1982) in 1983.

Europe trilogy[link]

After graduation he began work on the very stylized crime drama, The Element of Crime (Forbrydelsens element 1984), which won a technical award at the Cannes Film Festival.

His next film was Epidemic (1987), which was also shown at Cannes in the Un Certain Regard section. The film is partly a dark science fiction-tale of a future plague epidemic, and partly chronicles two filmmakers (played by Lars von Trier and screenwriter Niels Vørsel) preparing that film, with the two storylines ultimately colliding.

For television von Trier directed Medea (1988), which won the Jean d'Arcy prize in France. It was based on a screenplay by Carl Th. Dreyer and starred Udo Kier.

He completed the Europe-trilogy in 1991 with Europa (released as Zentropa in the U.S.), which won the Prix du Jury at the 1991 Cannes Film Festival^[13] and picked up awards at other major festivals.

In 1990 he also directed the music video for the worldwide hit "Bakerman" by Laid Back.^[14] This video was reused in 2006 by the English DJ and artist Shaun Baker who did a remake of Bakerman.

[edit] Zentropa and The Kingdom

In 1992 he and producer Peter Aalbæk Jensen founded the movie production company Zentropa Entertainment, named after a train company in Europa, their most recent film at the time.^[8] The reason for doing this was to achieve financial independence and to have total creative control. The production company has produced many movies other than von Trier's own as well as television series. It is also the world's only mainstream film studio to have produced hardcore sex films:^{[citation needed]} Constance (1998), Pink Prison (1999), HotMen CoolBoyz (2000) and All About Anna (2005).

In order to make money for his newly founded company,^[15] he made The Kingdom (Riget, 1994) and The Kingdom II (Riget II, 1997), a pair of miniseries recorded in the Danish national hospital, the name "Riget" being a colloquial name for the hospital known as Rigshospitalet (lit. The Kingdom's Hospital) in Danish. A projected third installment in the series was derailed by the 1998 death of Ernst-Hugo Järegård, who played Helmer, one of the major characters.

Dogme 95[link]

In 1995, Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg presented their manifesto for a new cinematic movement which they called Dogme 95. It would however take a while before the first of these films appeared, and at this point many thought of the concept mainly as a radical idea with no future.^{[citation needed]}

In 1996, von Trier conducted an unusual theatrical experiment in Copenhagen involving 53 actors, which he titled Psychomobile 1: The World Clock. A documentary chronicling the project was directed by Jesper Jargil, and was released in 2000 with the title De Udstillede (The Exhibited).

Von Trier's next film, Breaking the Waves (1996), the first film in von Trier's 'Golden Heart Trilogy', won the Grand Prix at Cannes and featured Emily Watson, who was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. Its grainy images and hand-held photography pointed towards Dogme 95. The second was The Idiots (1998), nominated for a Palme d'Or, which he presented in person at the Cannes Film Festival notwithstanding his dislike of travelling. Dancer in the Dark (2000) was the final component of the trilogy.

As originator of the Dogme 95 concept, which has led to international interest in Danish film as a whole, he has inspired filmmakers all over the world.^[16] Trier and Thomas Vinterberg, who created the Dogme 95 Manifesto and the "Vow of Chastity" together with their fellow Dogme directors Kristian Levring and Søren Kragh-Jacobsen shared in 2008 the European Film Award European Achievement in World Cinema.

Explicit images[link]

Von Trier's use of sexually explicit images in The Idiots (1998) started a wave^{[citation needed]} of arthouse mainstream films with unsimulated sex, such as Catherine Breillat's Romance (1999), Baise-Moi (2000), Intimacy (2001), Vincent Gallo's The Brown Bunny (2003) and Michael Winterbottom's 9 Songs (2004).

In 1998, Lars von Trier also made history by having his company Zentropa be the world's first mainstream film company to produce hardcore pornographic films. Three of these films, Constance (1998), Pink Prison (1999) and the adult/mainstream crossover-feature All About Anna (2005), were made primarily for a female audience, and were extremely successful in Europe, with the first two being directly responsible for the March 2006 legalizing of pornography in Norway.^[17]

Women too like to see other people having sex. What they don’t like is the endless close-ups of hammering bodyparts without a story. Lars von Trier is the first to have realised this and produced valuable quality porn films for women.

— Stern No. 40, 27 September 2007^[18]

Lars von Trier's initiative spearheaded a European wave of female-friendly porn films from directors such as Anna Span, Erika Lust and Petra Joy, while von Trier's company Zentropa was forced to abandon the experiment due to pressure from English business partners.^[19] In July 2009, women's magazine Cosmopolitan ranked Pink Prison as No. 1 in its Top Five of the best women’s porn, calling it the "role model for the new porn-generation".^[20] Lars von Trier would return to explicit images in his self-directed Antichrist (2009), exploring darker themes.

2000s[link]

In 2000, von Trier premiered a musical featuring Icelandic musician Björk, Dancer in the Dark. The film won the Palme d'Or at Cannes.^[21] The song "I've Seen It All" (which Trier co-wrote) received an Academy Award nomination for Best Song.

The Five Obstructions (2003), made by Lars von Trier and Jørgen Leth, is a documentary, but also incorporates lengthy sections of experimental films. The premise is that Lars von Trier challenges director Jørgen Leth, his friend and mentor, to remake his old experimental film The Perfect Human (1967) five times, each time with a different 'obstruction' (or obstacle) specified by von Trier.^[22]

He then directed two films in his announced 'U.S. trilogy': Dogville (2003), starring Nicole Kidman and Manderlay (2005), starring Bryce Dallas Howard in the same role – as Grace. Both films are extremely stylized, with the actors playing their parts on a nearly empty soundstage with little but chalk marks on the floor to indicate the sets. Both films had huge casts of major international actors (Harriet Andersson, Lauren Bacall, James Caan, Danny Glover, Willem Dafoe, etc.), and questioned various issues relating to American society, such as intolerance in Dogville and slavery in Manderlay.

Controversy erupted on the 2004 set for Manderlay when actor John C. Reilly walked off the Trollhättan, Sweden, set in late March. Reilly walked off the film when he learned that an upcoming scene involved the slaughter of a donkey for food. The film's producer says the animal—who was old and not expected to live much longer—was killed off-camera by a certified veterinarian, in accordance with Swedish law. Reilly was replaced by Zeljko Ivanek.^[23]

The U.S. was also the scene for Dear Wendy (2005), a feature film directed by von Trier's "Dogme-brother" Thomas Vinterberg from a script by von Trier. It starred Jamie Bell and Bill Pullman and dealt with gun worship and violence in American society.

In 2006, von Trier released a Danish-language comedy film, The Boss of it All. It was shot using a process that von Trier has called Automavision, which involves the director choosing the best possible fixed camera position and then allowing a computer to randomly choose when to tilt, pan or zoom.

It was followed by an autobiographical film, De unge år: Erik Nietzsche sagaen del 1 (2007), scripted by von Trier but directed by Jacob Thuesen, which tells the story of von Trier's years as a student at the National Film School of Denmark. It stars Jonatan Spang as von Trier's alter ego, called "Erik Nietzsche", and is narrated by von Trier himself. All main characters in the film are based on real people from the Danish film industry,^{[citation needed]} with the thinly veiled portrayals including Jens Albinus as director Nils Malmros, Dejan Čukić as screenwriter Mogens Rukov and Søren Pilmark in an especially unflattering portrayal as sex-obsessed school principal Henning Camre.

Von Trier's next feature film was a horror movie, Antichrist, about "a grieving couple who retreat to their cabin in the woods, hoping a return to Eden will repair their broken hearts and troubled marriage; but nature takes its course and things go from bad to worse". The film, which includes sexually explicit content, stars Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg. It premiered in competition at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, where the festival's jury honoured the movie by giving the Best Actress award to Gainsbourg.^[24] The Cannes Film Festival Ecumenical Jury, which gives prizes for movies that promote spiritual, humanist and universal values, also "honoured" the film with a special "anti-award"; a spokesman for the jury described it as "the most misogynist movie from the self-proclaimed biggest director in the world."^[25] In 2010 the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter reported on their website that the film production company Zentropa is reportedly making more revenue from suing movie pirates in Germany that have downloaded Antichrist illegally than from box office and DVD sales, demanding a payment of around 1,300 euros per download to avoid legal action.^[26]

2010s[link]

Von Trier's latest work is Melancholia, a psychological disaster drama;^[27] shot between 22 July and 8 September 2010 at Film i Väst's studios in Trollhättan, Sweden,^[28] and with exteriors in the area surrounding the Tjolöholm Castle.^[29] Magnolia Pictures has acquired the distribution rights for North America.^[30] The film was in competition at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival.^[31]

Von Trier announced that after finishing Melancholia he hopes to begin production of The Nymphomaniac, a two-part film about the sexual awakening of a woman (Charlotte Gainsbourg).^[32] The director explained how he got the idea for the upcoming project: "my DP on [Melancholia], Manuel Claro, at one point voiced a surprising prejudice. He urged me not to fall into the trap that so many aging directors fall into – that the women get younger and younger and nuder and nuder. That's all I needed to hear. I most definitely intend for the women in my films to get younger and younger and nuder and nuder."^[33]

Phobias[link]

Von Trier suffers from multiple phobias, including an intense fear of flying.^[34] His fear of air travel frequently places severely limiting constraints on him and his crew, necessitating that virtually all of his films be shot in either Denmark or Sweden, even those set in the United States or other foreign countries. Von Trier has had a number of his films featured at the Cannes Film Festival over the course of his career, and each time has insisted on driving from Denmark to France for the festival and back.

On numerous occasions von Trier has also stated that he suffers from occasional depression which renders him incapable of performing his work and unable to fulfill social obligations.^[35]

Filming techniques[link]

Lars von Trier has said that "a film should be like a stone in your shoe". In order to create original art he feels that filmmakers must distinguish themselves stylistically from other films, often by placing restrictions on the filmmaking process. The most famous restriction is the cinematic "vow of chastity" of the Dogme95 movement with which he is associated, though only one of his films, The Idiots, is an actual Dogme 95 film. In Dancer in the Dark, jump shots^[36] and dramatically-different color palettes and camera techniques were used for the "real world" and musical portions of the film, and in Dogville everything was filmed on a sound stage with no set where the walls of the buildings in the fictional town were marked as lines on the floor.

Von Trier often shoots digitally and operates the camera himself, preferring to continuously shoot the actors in-character without stopping between takes. In Dogville he let actors stay in character for hours, in the style of method acting. These techniques often put great strain on actors, most famously with Björk during the filming of Dancer in the Dark. Often he uses the same regular group of actors in many of his films: some of his frequently used actors are Jean-Marc Barr, Udo Kier and Stellan Skarsgård.

He is heavily influenced by the work of Carl Theodor Dreyer^[37] and the film The Night Porter.^[38] He was so inspired by the short film The Perfect Human directed by Jørgen Leth that he challenged Leth to redo the short five times in feature film The Five Obstructions.^[39]

Trilogies[link]

Von Trier has on occasion referred to his films as falling into thematic and stylistic trilogies. This pattern began with his first feature film, marking the beginning of The Europa Trilogy, though he claims a trilogy was not initially planned, instead being applied to the films in retrospect. The Europe trilogy illuminated the traumas of Europe in the past and future. This trilogy includes The Element of Crime (1984), Epidemic (1987) and Europa (1991).

The Golden Heart trilogy was about naive heroines who maintain their 'golden hearts' despite the tragedies they experience. This trilogy consists of Breaking the Waves (1996), The Idiots (1998) and Dancer in the Dark (2000). While all three films are sometimes associated with the Dogme 95 movement, only The Idiots is a certified Dogme 95 film.

The USA: Land of Opportunities trilogy follows the character of Grace, and is set in a stylized American past. Von Trier has stated he was inspired to make a trilogy about the United States as a reaction to Americans at the Cannes film festival who said he had no right to make the Dancer in the Dark,^[8] which was often viewed as being critical of a country he has never been to (and has no intention of ever visiting, due to his phobia of travel); however, von Trier himself has stated in interviews he did not intend it to be a criticism of America, saying the film takes place in a "fictional America". Von Trier proposed the films as ‘a series of sermons on America’s sins and hypocrisy’^{[citation needed]}, inspired by the fact that American movie makers have made many movies about places across the world to which they have not travelled. All three movies will be shot in the same distinctive style, on a bare sound stage with no set and buildings marked by lines on the floor. This style is inspired by 1970s televised theatre. The trilogy will consist of Dogville (2003), Manderlay (2005) and the so far not produced Wasington.

The Kingdom (Riget) was planned as a trilogy of three seasons with 13 episodes in total, but the third season was not filmed due to death of star Ernst-Hugo Järegård shortly after completion of the second season.

Biological father[link]

In 1989, von Trier's mother revealed on her deathbed that the man whom he thought was his father was not, and that she had had a tryst with her former employer, Fritz Michael Hartmann (1909–2000),^[40] who descended from a long line of Roman Catholic classical musicians (his grandfather was Emil Hartmann, his great grandfather J.P.E. Hartmann, his uncles included Niels Gade and Johan Ernst Hartmann and thus Niels Viggo Bentzon was his cousin). She stated that she did this in order to give her son "artistic genes".^[41]

Until that point I thought I had a Jewish background. But I'm really more of a Nazi. I believe that my biological father's German family went back two further generations. Before she died, my mother told me to be happy that I was the son of this other man. She said my foster father had had no goals and no strength. But he was a loving man. And I was very sad about this revelation. And you then feel manipulated when you really do turn out to be creative. If I'd known that my mother had this plan, I would have become something else. I would have shown her. The slut!^[42]

During the German occupation of Denmark, Fritz Michael Hartmann worked as a civil servant and joined a resistance group (Frit Danmark), actively counteracting any pro-German and pro-Nazi colleagues in his department.^[43] Another member of this infiltrative resistance group was Hartmann's colleague Viggo Kampmann, who would later become prime minister of Denmark.^[44]

After four awkward meetings with his biological father, the man refused further contact.^[45] The revelations led von Trier to attempt to "erase" the connections with his stepfather by converting to Catholicism, and to rework his filmmaking into a style emphasizing "honesty".^[3]

I don't know if I'm all that Catholic really. I'm probably not. Denmark is a very Protestant country. Perhaps I only turned Catholic to piss off a few of my countrymen.^[42]

In 2009, he declared, "I'm a very bad Catholic. In fact I'm becoming more and more of an atheist."^[46]

Controversy at 2011 Cannes Film Festival[link]

On 19 May 2011, Cannes Film Festival's board of directors declared von Trier persona non grata for comments he made during a press conference for his film Melancholia the day before, an unprecedented move for the film festival.^[47][48] Responding to a question by The Times film critic Kate Muir about his German roots and his comments in a Danish film magazine about the Nazi aesthetic, von Trier claimed to have some sympathy for and understanding of Adolf Hitler,^[49] and then jokingly claimed to be a Nazi himself:^[50][51]

Von Trier at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival.

What can I say? I understand Hitler, but I think he did some wrong things, yes, absolutely. ... He's not what you would call a good guy, but I understand much about him, and I sympathize with him a little bit. But come on, I'm not for the Second World War, and I'm not against Jews. ... I am of course very much for Jews, no not too much, because Israel is pain in the ass, but still how can I get out of this sentence. ...

— Press Conference for Melancholia, Cannes, 2011^[52][53]

Referring to the art of Nazi architect Albert Speer, von Trier added:

... he had some talent that was kind of possible for him to use during... Ok, I'm a Nazi.

Then, to Toronto Star film critic Peter Howell, who questioned whether Melancholia could be an answer to Hollywood blockbusters and asked von Trier if he could “envison doing a film on a grander scale than this”, von Trier replied:

On a grander scale? Yeah. Yeah that's what we Nazis, we have a tendency to do things on a greater scale. Yeah, maybe you could persuade me into the final solution with journalists. ...

Hours later, von Trier released a brief statement of apology about his comments at the press conference: "If I have hurt someone this morning by the words I said at the press conference, I sincerely apologise. I am not anti-semitic or racially prejudiced in any way, nor am I a Nazi."^[54] The next day, the festival directors held an extraordinary meeting, deciding his remarks were "unacceptable, intolerable and contrary to the ideals of humanity and generosity that preside over the very existence of the festival. [...] The board of directors condemns these comments and declares Lars von Trier persona non grata at the Festival de Cannes, with effect immediately."^[54]

Afterwards, von Trier held a news conference of his own in Danish. His first remark to the Danish journalists was: "If any of you journalists will beat me, so just do it. I will enjoy it." He went on to say that "The Holocaust is the worst crime that ever happened. I have nothing against Jews. I have a Jewish name, and all my children have Jewish names." He admitted that his remarks about the Nazis had been misguided, saying "It was really stupidly done and it was in the wrong forum. At the press conference with Danish journalists, there were no problems, but I do not think the international journalists understand my Danish humor." But he also said he was proud to have been kicked out of the Cannes festival: "I am proud to have been declared 'persona non grata'. It is perhaps the first time in cinematic history, it has happened. ... I think one reason is that French people treated the Jews badly during World War II. Therefore, it is a sensitive topic for them. I respect the Cannes festival very highly, but I also understand that they are very angry at me right now."^[55][54]

Speaking to other news outlets he said that his comments were "very sarcastic and very rude, but that's very Danish." He also added, "I don't sympathize with Hitler for one second."^[56]

In the October 2011 issue of GQ, von Trier is quoted in an interview saying he was not really sorry for the comments he made, only sorry he didn't make it clear that he was joking. He added, "I can't be sorry for what I said—it's against my nature."^[57] On 5 October 2011, von Trier was interviewed by police in Denmark about his remarks at Cannes. Afterwards, he announced that he had 'decided from this day forth to refrain from all public statements and interviews'.^[58]

Honours[link]

Von Trier was made a Knight of the Order of the Dannebrog on 14 January 1997.^[59] Ten years later von Trier decided to hand back the prize, saying that the Danish royal family are just "simple people of bad quality".^[60]

Filmography[link]

References[link]

Notes[link]